yk, now that i think of it, i nanny'd a preemie boy years ago... he came home from the hosp on enfamil 22/// preemie formula. and if i had to choose, i'd choose enfamil over similac anyday.. similac is so harsh. anyway... he was put on enfamil, and one month later i had a nephew born premie in the same hosp, same nicu etc. adn he was put on similace neosure... when i got to the bottom of it. i found out taht they rotate which brand they push month by month... so, it doesnt matter which brand is best for your baby per say... jsut which company do we recommend this month??? how awful...

AmyB, that is a great post, right to the point. I think the evidence is clear that "accidental" co-sleeping, where basic common-sense precautions are not taken, is what is dangerous.

I mean, which is better- a mom takes her baby into the family bed, which is a comfy, safe environment and they peacefully sleep together, or an exhausted parent crashing on the couch with a newborn and falling into a hard sleep after spending hours trying to comfort them because they cry every time you put them in a crib. After I did the latter a couple of nights I decided the SAFEST place for my baby was in the bed with me!

Love homeschooling, reading, cooking (most of the time grain-free except for when I'm not To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), lactivist, former and wanna-be cloth diaperer and baby-wearer...

The research is not sound because the AAP report is lumping together unrelated causes of infant death:

I don't think so. The studies I linked in a pp are the ones the AAP relies on to make its recommendation. In those studies, the variables you talk about are separated out. In those three studies "proper" co-sleeping was significantly correlated with a slightly higher incidence of SIDS than sleeping separately for very young infants. There are other studies designed similarly that found no significant correlation, though.

The main criticism I have of the studies is that they rely on parents of SIDS babies to be truthful about their sleeping arrangements at the time their child died, and I think they are likely to lie about dangerous sleeping arrangements rather than admit they may have played a part in their child's death by not heeding safe co-sleeping rules.

However, the AAP's practice of reviewing the literature to come to a conclusion is by no means scientifically suspect. All kinds of public health decisions are made this way. I am in the field of environmental risk assesment, and agencies like EPA do this kind of thing all the time in order to make regulations on things like the arsenic limit in drinking water.

I did and do co-sleep, and not even "safely" because my DS is so high needs he needed to sleep on my lap. I would do it again if I needed to, but it wouldn't stop me from worrying about SIDS with a new baby.

Like I said before, the recommendation against co-sleeping (where does it say "ban" anywhere?) really is based on data that say it is a problem for babies up to 20 weeks old, at the very oldest. Even so, I'll probably take the risk (real or artifact) and co-sleep when I decide to have another DC.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, hoping to settle some of the most hotly debated and emotional issues related to the care of newborns, is for the first time endorsing routine pacifier use and explicitly advocating a ban on babies sleeping with their parents.

Autistic pagan mama with five kiddos on the spectrum, learning through living life.

Quote:
The American Academy of Pediatrics, hoping to settle some of the most hotly debated and emotional issues related to the care of newborns, is for the first time endorsing routine pacifier use and explicitly advocating a ban on babies sleeping with their parents.

appears to be a quote from the Washington Post article that headed this thread -- so is the reference to "crib death," which is in the title of the said article ("To Cut Crib Deaths, Separate Beds Are Urged for Babies")

for those of you dealing with know it all MIL and such, this quote from the actual policy MIGHT help you:
Therefore, when considering the recommendations
in this report, it is fundamentally misguided to
focus on a single risk factor or to attempt to quantify
risk for an individual infant.

I interpret that to mean -- ok, so you co-sleep -- are you eliminating all other risk factors?
Just a thought as I plan my defense at the next family gathering . . .

I hate it when experts get into my personal business and call it dangerous! I think a baby sleeping in another room is dangerous (fires ect) Are they going to tell me I am an unfit mother...my baby is super content, healthy and happy! Most people seems to the AAP, but I . My husband and I are the exprt on Jack.

Next topic: why are child-rearing practices so backwards/opposite of history and common sense in the US? Talk amounst yourselves....

thank you mommas for the info and i love all of you! i need you all,seriously, my very annoying know it all MIL sent me an email about that study and im taking quotes from this board and sending them to her. hope you guys dont mind. just facts etc im not using your names or anything. ughh. she annoys me and shes coming to see her granddaugter for the 1st time this weekend and ill be alone with her for the 1st 5 hours b/c my DH will be at work!! ahhhhhhhh!!!
<3,
nicole

What is it with MILs and clipping out articles and/or mailing them? Seems to be an epidemic. Mine does that to me constantly. I'm sure I'll probably see this study sent to me at one point. In defense of her, though, she has gotten somewhat better lately, by looking at a few alternative sources. I think since our little girl is SO healthy and SO happy, it's convinced her that everything we're doing isn't bad. (Also, our incredibly healthy teeth since we gave up fluoride and drink spring water exclusively now to avoid it and other bad things in our water has helped convince her we're not crazy, too).

What is it with MILs and clipping out articles and/or mailing them? Seems to be an epidemic.

Well... I've thought of this a lot, having a neurotic mainstream MIL and all. And I came to the conclusion that I'd feel very nervous if I ever have a DIL who mothers opposite of what I know is best. (You know they truely believe what they're saying.) I actually often wonder how I'd handle having a grandchild who was CIO, FF, vaxed, etc...

Not that I'll ever cave to MIL, but at least that thought has kept me from wanting to kill her when she tried to bribe us to vax.

About the issue at hand... well, I just can't slap my forhead hard enough.

Here is something interesting in their recommendations: "the evidence is growing that bed sharing, AS PRACTICED IN THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES, is more hazardous than the infant sleeping on a separate sleep surface". So, how is bed sharing practiced in non-US and non-Western countries that doesn't increase the risk of SIDS? Anyone know?

.

I think this is key. I think that people need to be educated that if you want to cosleep you need to make the bed safe for the infant. I read an article in a mainstream mag recently that said that in eastern countries parents sleep on a mat or futon on the ground and what american parent would do that? (paraphrase). but it just dismissed the idea. i wrote in that i would and did. we put our firm mattress on the floor, stored the box spring and frame, removed blankets and pillows. my hubby and i each had a small pillow under our head and a thin blanket behind each of us pulled over our back. care was taken to make sure their were no gaps that our baby could get wedge in and nothing nearby to suffocate her. if you read the list of crib safety checks it is long: no bumper pads, no padding, no blankets, no pillows, tight fitting sheet, no gap between mattress and crib, check width of slats, etc. Why not similar recommendatons for accomodating a family bed?

Thanks everyone for the comments - I'm so glad I'm not alone being disgusted by the AAP recommendations. However, after a few days of pondering (and, like everyone else, being thoroughly annoyed at MIL for telling me I was making a "big mistake" planning to cosleep) I have had some thoughts on this and I think I am starting to maybe slightly understand where the AAP is coming from.

First, I think that their point that cosleeping *as practiced in North America and the West* is potentially a problem, is valid. We typically do NOT cosleep naturally. As a pp pointed out, our beds and bedding are very different than Asian/African bedding and all our blankets and pillows and soft mattresses are risky. Also, and this is something I feel is vastly overlooked, a lot of parents still put baby to bed long before they retire. My baby hasn't been born yet so maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get this. Babies sleep just fine in slings or carriers or in bassinettes in the living room or carseats or wherever during the day, why don't they sleep in the same room that the parents are in during the evening hours? It's not like "bedtime" is a valid concept for an infant. I don't think people do this in non-Western countries but pretty much everyone I know - even "attachment" parents - does this here. So there are typically 3-4 hours every night when baby is sleeping alone, even if technically the baby is sleeping in the same room as the parents. And if the baby doesn't have a crib, he/she is basically sleeping alone, in an adult bed, which everyone, McKenna included, agrees is a bad idea. But I don't think this staggered bedtime has been looked at as a factor - in my perusal of the AAP research it didn't seem to be the case; nor did the AAP mention it. (But if I'm wrong about this, please someone correct me. I would very much like to be told that a lot of people don't put their babies to bed before themselves!)

Second, giving the AAP the benefit of the doubt and putting on my "cynical cranky" hat for a minute: given that it seems none of us are arguing that things like accidental cosleeping, alcohol use, puffy comforters etc. ARE risks, would the AAP really want to come out and say "cosleeping is great"? Because as much as we want to believe otherwise, people are generally pretty lazy when it comes to the whole reading/listening thing, and if they don't pay attention to the caveats on cosleeping they WILL put their children at risk. Moreover, this information is disseminated through the mass media, so a lot of people will pay attention only to the headlines, and take only the headlines away as retained information.

It's a totally different scenario than with breastfeeding. There are no risks with breastfeeding. If you do it "wrong" it's not fatal.

I guess what I'm saying is that if I were generating policies for the AAP, I'd be concerned about the capability of my audience to take in the information. And it IS sad and maybe I am being excessively cynical, but in the hypothetical situation of the AAP releasing a "cosleeping is good if..." recommendation, how many people are actually going to read through (or even listen to) ALL the points? How many media outlets are going to report anything other than "The AAP recommends cosleeping"? And how many people are going to take any of the caveats seriously? How many people are going to just think, "this is great, we don't have to spend any money on a crib" and stuff Junior in their waterbed between their two obese, over-medicated, over-tired bodies and then say "but the AAP said it was ok"?

I sincerely wish that the AAP hadn't released a statement at all. And I wish they had included much more information about the methodological discrepancies between Western cosleeping and other cosleeping practices, and I REALLY wish that they had made more of a big deal about the risks of babies being put to sleep in a room by themselves. But if they felt they had to release a statement just on cosleeping, and didn't have any research on those discrepancies, then I guess I am reluctantly concluding that they maybe didn't do so badly.

It's not quite right to just blame the AAP. Our culture and its aversion to critical thinking (and in some cases, basic literacy) has a lot to do with this as well. What the AAP did in its statement was cater to the lowest common denominator, because they would be blamed for any misunderstandings.

Sorry for the long babble, I just felt the need to play devil's advocate there a bit. And no I do not work for the AAP (heck, I'm not even American) nor am I a fan, I just think there is some blame to share here.

OT:
does dr mckenna have a website on co-sleeping?i have sometimes put my 3 week old to sleep in our bedwhen im doign laundry in the same room and im curious what is bad about it, its a king size bed so shes not going anywhere.. but im new at co-sleeping so educate me
<3,
nicole

OT:
does dr mckenna have a website on co-sleeping?i have sometimes put my 3 week old to sleep in our bedwhen im doign laundry in the same room and im curious what is bad about it, its a king size bed so shes not going anywhere.. but im new at co-sleeping so educate me
<3,
nicole

I don't know if anything is bad if you are "standing right there". But newborns have been known to do amazing things that you'd never think they could do. So leaving them alone in the middle of a big bed for even the shortest amount of time (e.g. run out of room to put clothes in closet) - could be really dangerous. This story is really extreme and really sad . . . but we have friends that did the same thing, stepped out for awhile (not sure how long - but several minutes, I think) - newborn wriggled enough to edge of bed that she was strangled by her bedclothes. I don't mean to be so morbid -- but this did happen -- so I think its good for us all to remember to take all precautions.

First, I think that their point that cosleeping *as practiced in North America and the West* is potentially a problem, is valid. We typically do NOT cosleep naturally. As a pp pointed out, our beds and bedding are very different than Asian/African bedding and all our blankets and pillows and soft mattresses are risky. Also, and this is something I feel is vastly overlooked, a lot of parents still put baby to bed long before they retire. My baby hasn't been born yet so maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get this. Babies sleep just fine in slings or carriers or in bassinettes in the living room or carseats or wherever during the day, why don't they sleep in the same room that the parents are in during the evening hours? It's not like "bedtime" is a valid concept for an infant. I don't think people do this in non-Western countries but pretty much everyone I know - even "attachment" parents - does this here. So there are typically 3-4 hours every night when baby is sleeping alone, even if technically the baby is sleeping in the same room as the parents. And if the baby doesn't have a crib, he/she is basically sleeping alone, in an adult bed, which everyone, McKenna included, agrees is a bad idea. But I don't think this staggered bedtime has been looked at as a factor - in my perusal of the AAP research it didn't seem to be the case; nor did the AAP mention it. (But if I'm wrong about this, please someone correct me. I would very much like to be told that a lot of people don't put their babies to bed before themselves!).

My babies (dd1 a 3 yo now who sleeps fine in her own bed) have never been able to sleep by themselves for any period of time longer than a 1/2 hour, not sure if this is a parent or child initiated thing. As a result I do go to bed at the same time as my kiddos. I've never felt comfortable leaving a sleeping baby unsupervised.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spughy

It's not quite right to just blame the AAP. Our culture and its aversion to critical thinking (and in some cases, basic literacy) has a lot to do with this as well. What the AAP did in its statement was cater to the lowest common denominator, because they would be blamed for any misunderstandings.

Yeah but I could easily see situations where crib sleeping could lead to abusive practices like CIO or worse. Many, many babies simply can't sleep alone for long periods of time so the recs are setting parents up for being unable to meet their childern's physical-emotional needs and subsequent abusive practices.

What about a baby of a mom who smokes and for her co-sleeping is the only way that mom can get enough sleep to meet the needs of her family and still keep her milk supply up? Is that baby better off with ABM (formula) and sleeping in a crib? For many babies and mom's willingness to co-sleep is the deal breaker between being able to BF or not.

Anyway if you believe the Dr. Sears stats something like 65 kids a year die from suffocation in co-sleeping envts and 2400 (I can't remember exactly) die in cribs from SIDS.

do they have any idea how alert a normal attached mother is with a new baby? i heard my 4 yr old have a nightmare that made him peep in his sleep last night from across the hall, & ran in so fast i thought my heart would explode (he didn't even wake up! but i was up since 2, the adrenaline!) he's four & we haven't coslept for a year (other than morning snuggles, nighttime nurse, etc) & i'm still 'on'.

the odds of me falling asleep on my baby (or for that matter not noticing a change in breathing patterns) are about the same as me falling asleep lying on a speaker at ozzfest.

sad, sad. well, back to everyone doing it & feeling guilty & lying about it to their inlaws & pediatricians, instead of education.

pacifiers!!! what dolts. it would turn the formula industry on their heads if the AAP actually made a significant statement against the routine use of artificial milk- everyone knows that a baby close to its mother's breast is probably going to nurse, & nurse well. one mouth- *cough* confident bfing mama is going to spread the word- 'this must be nipped in the bud, or our bonuses will shrink & our stock options will be worth zip!' bah.

it is so hard not to see a conspiracy here- if the AAP is so dang concerned about babies, how 'bout a nice loud policy statement about that god-cursed 'good start' contest, or anything else showing the feeding of aim as anything other than a tragic recourse when you have run out of other options?

1. I saw GMA. I thought it was absolutely idiotic that this mother would say, "I'm willing to do anything to prevent SIDS" and then plops a bottle of formula in her daughter's mouth!!! Isn't the AAP the same group of yahoos that said that breastfeeding is recomended thru one year and acknowledges that is REDUCES the incidence on SIDS?? Can't this same group of people notice that the breastfeeding instead of pacifiers would acomplish the same goal????? But I guess that wouldn't make anyone any money, would it???? :

2. I find it interesting that if a baby dies in a crib or their own bed, it's SIDS; but if that a baby dies in their parents bed it's SUFFOCATION. Like somehow either baby is any less DEAD!!! Ultimately the statistics show that FAR LESS babies die in their parents' beds than in cribs ~ who cares what the cause is?? :

3. I don't agree with the "back to sleep" campaign as a whole. Has anyone noticed that SIDS didn't exist until CRIBS did? Has anyone noticed that since this campaign started the incidence of sleep difficulties, exhausted parents, CIO, breastfeeding difficulties, and ACID REFLUX have skyrocketed? It also seems an interesting coincidence that at the same time the "back to sleep" campaign began "working" the medical community also changed the definition of what constituted SIDS and many babies that previously would have been considered SIDS are now given diagnosis of suffocation, other medical/genetic conditions, and unfortunately murder.

My largest problem with this statement is that the AAP is further promoting a DISTANCE between parents and their babies. If the AAP put the same amount of energy into breastfeeding that they put into these other campaigns ~ our children would be much healthier for it!!!!!!

I am incredibly dissapointed in the AAP... is there anything we can do???

"Ban" was The Washington Post's word, btw. Nowhere in the AAP statements did it say anything about "a ban on co-sleeping". The AAP is not a law making or enforcement authority, despite what the media would like to have you think apparently.

Anyone who makes claims like theirs (such as that phosphorus is a problem just because it is present in compounds like sarin - a chemical warfare agent) is not credible. Its sensationalist. By the same token, I could claim that table salt is a problem because it contains chlorine, because chlorine is also present in toxic compounds like PCBs and dioxins... but that is clearly a gross mischaracterization and has no basis in fact.

Oddly it was published in the Genetic Engineering News : --not what I usually think of as a hot bed of co-sleeping/breastfeeding. I found it when Googling responses to the AAP. The article itself is not connected with the genetic engineering news (as far as I can tell, but those guys can be tricky.)

As far as I've read and heard, the AAP has always discouraged co-sleeping, so I'm more curious as to why they suddenly had to reissue some statement, which everyone could guess would be trumpeted by the media in the most sensationalist form possible.

I understand that they have to take into account the people who will not practice co-sleeping safely. That's a good point that our culture with our puffy duvets, soft mattresses and ignorance of co-sleeping is not one prepared to suddenly co-sleep. Yet at the same time I'm slightly tired of them assuming parents are all stupid who can't be trusted at all with their children. This distrust of parents and in particular, mothers, seems to extend well beyond co-sleeping and into every advice book, article, or ped visit I've ever encountered.

Why not also educate on the danger of older cribs? Over 10 thousand kids every year are sent to the emergency room due to crib injuries. Why not address the potential hazard of those stupid baby quilts and crib bumpers that sell for a million dollars and are trumpeted as some kind of necessity? Why the tacit approval of some very draconian CIO routines? Why not even try to discuss safe co-sleeping? They could still approach this so much more fairly. I'm also curious to know more about Western European co-sleeping practices. I was under the impression that it is more accepted there, and yet in my experience in living there they don't sleep on futons on the floor any more than we do.

I agree that babies shouldn't be left alone on the bed, but I think it's tough because one reason a lot of people end up co-sleeping (namely me) is because the babe won't go down happily in a bassinet nor stay there asleep for more than four minutes. It would be fabulous if the AAP could maybe trumpet the use of slings or other carriers so that sleeping babies don't end up alone on the bed or crying in the crib. They aren't a perfect solution, but for shorter sleeps they certainly help.

I'm not a statistician, but bear with me.
My first reaction to dr. Sears was that, if 2500 SIDS deaths occur in cribs every year, you can't really compare that to 65 accidental suffocation deaths if soo many more people are using cribs than co-sleeping. But then if it's true that a good half of American families co-sleep, I suppose those would hold up (I believe co-sleeping is safer, I'm just trying to think about the numbers before I throw them out at people in defense of our co-sleeping). Although, I think most people only co-sleep in the beginning, or for a few hours when the child first wakes up or whatever.

Also, I've always just wondered, should a child die of SIDS in the family bed, won't it just be labeled a suffocation death, no matter what? Even if the mother had co-slept for months and always responded to the baby, or had with other children?

Where does that factoid come from about SIDS being lower in other countries? One ped told me that, and said that our rate of sids went down when we changed to back-sleeping guidelines. Now that we do that, I'd like to know if it's still lower. I asked her that, but she didn't answer. I'm willing to bet it's lower in countries where they co-sleep more.

It would be fabulous if the AAP could maybe trumpet the use of slings or other carriers so that sleeping babies don't end up alone on the bed or crying in the crib. They aren't a perfect solution, but for shorter sleeps they certainly help.

They sort of say this. On page 19 of the 41 page abstract, there is a line that recommends: "Avoid having the infant spend excessive time in car seat carriers and "bouncers", in which pressure is applied to the occiput. Upright "cuddle time" should be encouraged."

occuput means the back of the head.

Funny how this didn't make it into the major media papers.

Some other things I found that I haven't heard from the mainstream media:

on page 18:

about pacifier usage:

pacifier shouldn't be reinserted once baby has fallen asleep, shouldn't be coated in any sweet solution, for breastfed infants should delay introduction.

about "SIDs prevention" devices:
Avoid commercial devices marketed to reduce the risk of SIDs. Although various devices have been developed to maintain sleep position or reduce the risk of rebreathing, none have been tested sufficiently to show efficacy or safety.

I don't know if anything is bad if you are "standing right there". But newborns have been known to do amazing things that you'd never think they could do. So leaving them alone in the middle of a big bed for even the shortest amount of time (e.g. run out of room to put clothes in closet) - could be really dangerous. This story is really extreme and really sad . . . but we have friends that did the same thing, stepped out for awhile (not sure how long - but several minutes, I think) - newborn wriggled enough to edge of bed that she was strangled by her bedclothes. I don't mean to be so morbid -- but this did happen -- so I think its good for us all to remember to take all precautions.

yikes!! poor thing. so if i cant put her in my sling i guess her bassinet would be better for naps during the day?
<3,
nicole

I think that the AAP's recommendations are very connected to fear of litigation. If a ped. recommends co-sleeping or doesn't explictly say not to do it and something happens, there is a risk of being sued. In a society as letitious (spelling?) as the United States (Canada is also going this way), so many decisions are made this way. There needs to be a cultural shift.